Like this:

A few weeks ago I had lunch in Holmfirth (Last of the summer wine country) in a little café called Scufflers.

I wondered what the name meant – was it to do with fighting or a garden implement?

I have now discovered it is a Yorkshire word from the area around Castleford – and it is a used for a triangular shaped teacake or bread bun. In Poland these would be called bułeczki

I found a recipe and made some.

The enriched dough was super to work with – my shapes were a bit “random” – it would be easier to make round buns. They were delicious and I will certainty be adding this to my list of favourite doughs.

Ingredients

450g strong flour

30g butter

1 teaspoon of granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon of dried yeast

1 egg

250ml water

Method

Rub the butter into the flour until the mixture is like breadcrumbs.

Stir in the sugar, salt and dried yeast.

Mix together the egg and water.

Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture.

Add the egg mixture.

Using a knife at first and then your hands bring this together to make a dough.

Knead the dough for 10 minutes. (There is only one kneading so try and do the full time here).

Put the dough into a bowl and cover with a tea cloth and leave till it has doubled in size.

Dust a tray with flour.

Preheat the oven to GM7 – 220°C.

Press the dough into a rough rectangular shape – cut this into two squares and then divide these diagonally so you have eight triangles.

Place the triangles onto the floured baking tray.

Lightly dust with flour.

Bake for around 15 minutes – until golden brown.

Paragon – hand painted tea-plates – I could not resist the lovely shape and bought them recently.

Amusing Thought

In the café, some of the choices for lunch were sandwiches on baguettes, ciabatta or pannini – but despite its name –there was not a scuffler in sight!

Like this:

I came across this recipe recently which I was told originates in Sweden*.

The recipe makes two loaves and the bread is very soft and tasty.

Boiling water is poured over the rye flour and it is left overnight. This must start the breakdown of some of the starch in the flour to sugars.

I used dried yeast when I made this.

The bread is baked at a lower temperature than many other breads.

Ingredients

For scalding

100g dark rye flour

300ml of boiling water

For the rest

650g strong white flour

1 tablespoon of dried yeast

250ml of water

1.5 tablespoons of salt

Method

Put the rye flour into a bowl and pour the boiling water over it.

Mix this to a stiff paste.

Cover with a cloth and leave overnight.

The following morning, place the plain flour into a bowl and make a well and add the dried yeast followed by 100ml of water.

Cover and leave for around 15 minutes until all the yeast has dissolved.

Add the rest of the water (150ml), the salt and the scalded rye mixture.

Mix everything together well.

Now you need to knead this for around 5 minutes – this can be hard as the dough is sticky – I do this in the bowl for some of the time and then with wet hands I hold the dough up and sort of kneaded it in the air!

Put the dough back into the bowl and covered with clingfilm or a cloth and leave it for around 2 hours.

Divide the dough into two.

Flour your hands and stretch each piece into a rectangle around 2cm in thickness.

You now need to fold the dough into a long loaf.

With the short side facing you, fold this up a third gently onto the dough and then taking the top third pull this down to cover the two layers of dough.

Get a clean tea towel, flour this and using a cake lifter place the loaf on this and cover it with the rest of the tea towel.

Repeat this for the other loaf.

Leave the loaves to rest for around 1 hour.

Pre-heat the oven to GM8 – 230°C.

Use rye flour to flour two small baking sheets.

Place each loaf onto a prepared sheet and place them side by side in the oven.

Turn the temperature down immediately to GM4 -180°C.

Bake for 40 minutes.

Remove and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Variations

Add 1.5 tablespoons of caraway seeds to the dough mixture.

Divide the dough into 4 pieces and shape them into cobs.

Change the proportions to use more rye – I used 200g of dark rye & 550g of strong plain flour & an extra 100ml of boiling water for the overnightscalding & baked the loaves in long loaf tins after shaping the dough.

Tea plate is by Taylor and Kent of Longton

*Polish – Swedish Connections

The Polish King Zygmunt III Waza (1587 – 1632) was the son of King John III of Sweden and Katarzyna Jagiellonka (daughter of King Zygmunt I Stary (the old) of Poland). He was also the King of Sweden from 1592 – 1599.

Potop – The Deluge – was a period of invasion and war with Sweden in the mid 17th Century.

Szwed – The Swede is a very common surname in Poland . One of my father’s best friends had this surname.

There are 72 ferry sailings a week from Polish Baltic ports to Sweden.